The Old Man
by SpookyNooodle
Summary: Ozpin has carried the powers and duties of The Old Man for a very long time, but when Cinder enacts her plans and Ozpin dies, he passes the abilities and responsibilities of the title onto Jaune. [FALL SPOILERS] Rated T for Language, Violence, and a wee bit o' Gore


"Jaune…"

Ozpin was dying. Jaune knew enough about the human body to tell that unless they got to a hospital soon, the headmaster would bleed out. And considering the state of the school… He couldn't calculate stuff like this in his head like Weiss, but he gave Ozpin 5 minutes, 7 at best.

"Jaune, listen to me."

Jesus, even as he was dying the old man could still spook Jaune like nothing else.

"Yes? I'm here, professor."

"Did Pyrrha tell you about the task we assigned her?"

Oh, you mean that thing about absorbing another person's aura, gaining unimaginable power, and possibly losing her mind? Yeah, she'd confided a thing or two. The flash of anger faded as quick as it came, replaced with guilt. How much had Pyrrha risked to tell all of them?

"Damnit, Jaune! Now is not the time for secrets!" Never, never, had Jaune ever heard Ozpin swear. The idea seemed almost ridiculous.

"Yeah. She told us…. She told us everything."

"Everything she _knew_ , anyway. At least this will make things easier." Ozpin coughed, and there was no doubt in Jaune's mind about whether or not that was a coffee stain on his teacher's shirt.

"What do you mean?" Instead of answering his question, Ozpin responded with one of his own.

"Do you remember the Old Man from the story of the Seasons?" Jaune made to respond, but a shudder around them made him pause. His nervous blue eyes glanced around their temporary shelter, a piece of wall that had fallen and cracked in half, simultaneously shielding and separating them from the battle that still raged outside.

Ozpin saw the concern in his face, so he did what he did best: he lied. "I'm sure that we are completely safe." Jaune nodded and looked back to him, but his eyes never lost their concern. Ozpin idly wondered how Jaune's eyes would look with his new hair.

"Yes, I remember."

"Then I should tell you this. The maidens of the story weren't the only ones with powers. The Old Man possessed the… gift… of extraordinarily long life, among other abilities. Long life is not immortality, however, and his numerous abilities transferred themselves in the same manner as the powers of the Four Seasons. This… passage of the powers continued through the ages, but much less frequently due to the inherent longevity."

Jaune, despite what some might think, wasn't stupid. He had a suspicion of where this was going, but he didn't want to jump to conclusions. Ozpin continued:

"After a very, very, _very_ long time, those powers came to me." Ozpin paused here, as if he expected Jaune to freak out. He was surprised, however: it seemed Jaune operated well under pressure.

"Why are you telling me this?" Jaune's mouth had formed into a hard line.

"I think you already know." Ozpin smiled sympathetically. If Jaune Arc was still the same man he had admitted (practically kidnapped, considering how difficult those transcripts had been to acquire and sneak past Glynda) to Beacon, then he would accept the offer Ozpin was about to make. And it was going to hurt. He had no doubt that Jaune would wish he had never taken the power the moment he had it. Ozpin himself had attempted suicide within the first year he had them.

Jaune nodded, his mouth never wavering from that line. "What do you need me to do?"

Ozpin's smile turned from sympathetic to fond. He hadn't said 'I'll do it' or 'I accept'; there was no thought of himself or the power he was about to gain. His first and last thought had been of responsibility, of helping out a dying Old Man.

Despite himself, Ozpin chuckled. "Based on the lack of feeling in my extremities, and the severe pain in my left lung, all you'll have to do is wait a few seconds."

Jaune chuckled too, though it sounded more like the cawing of a crow. Qrow… had Ozpin ever told him what a bastard he was? Qrow had always been so cynical, so bleak after everything that happened. It was as if the world ceased to have value for him. He had forgotten the hope, the light, the love of the tiny people that lived in the world. He was so caught up in the 'grand, universal' truths of 'the world is large, the Grimm are ever-present, and the universe is uncaring to any tragedies that befall someone' that he had forgotten that no one cares.

People always assumed that the world was so large, but that was never really the case. A person's world never extended farther than the people they care about. But Qrow had forgotten, and so his world had become small, and sad, and self-pitying. Ah, well. He just hoped someone told him before he… No. The others were fine. Glynda could handle herself, Qrow was a monster with his weapon, James was merciless. An image came unbidden into Ozpin's mind of Ironwood bashing a Grimm with his own forehead, and he laughed again, though that quickly devolved into a painful, wracking cough.

He just now realized that Jaune was crying.

"Jaune."

The boy looked up at him and sniffed, tears trailing down his cheeks.

"They're okay."

Jaune nodded hurriedly, letting out a gasping laugh. Of course they were fine, they were all capable huntsman and huntresses-in-training. Nothing could happen to them. Not like him.

Ozpin had been right: Jaune had been thinking about his friends. Even in this terrible moment of darkness, he thought only of his friends. He must love them so much.

"Jaune", he said again. "This will be confusing for the first few minutes. You may even pass out and collapse. If your first minutes are anything like mine, the powers will come naturally, though you won't discover your true capabilities for a few years." _Many_ years. "Trust your instincts. You have the capabilities and wisdom of half a dozen men at your fingers." Only half a dozen. That's how long they had all lived. While the maidens' powers had passed through hundreds of hosts, the Old Man had only gone through seven, including Jaune.

He felt it coming, the fast-approaching wave of darkness. Oblivion. So pretentious a word.

"And Jaune?" He looked up at him again, the tears having carved tracks through the dirt on his face. Ozpin reached out his hand, gentle grasping Jaune at the base of the neck. "I'm sorry."

And with that, Ozpin, the headmaster of Beacon Academy, passed into the void.

As the man's eyes closed, Jaune felt such a disbelief flood through him. Ozpin, dead? The idea was unthinkable, stupid, ridiculous!

But then a Pain split Jaune's consciousness, a Pain so intense that Jaune was sure that his skull had split open and his brains were currently frying in a pan.

Images began flashing in Jaune's mind: the inside of a bare, cold, dark wooden house, the road of a hill, four beautiful women with white, red, blonde, and chestnut brown hair, a basket of fresh fruit, a field of waving wheat, the same four women as they glowed strange colours, a strange-looking Grimm. The images flashed faster and faster. He must have spent hundreds of years just sitting there, writhing next to Ozpin's corpse.

A sword in his hands, a wave of Grimm charging him, a faunus girl with odd triangular ears, a man with coppery hair and a grin on his face, a white-haired woman with a tiny glyph at her finger tips, a little girl holding a daisy up to his face.

And then came the sound: The clash of the battlefield and the shrieking of fallen Grimm, a little girl "Daddy!", a man "Go to hell, Schnee!", a woman "You're a liar and a coward, and I'd sooner seduce an Ursa than ever trust you again!", a younger woman "Why couldn't you just trust us?", the unmistakable ripping sound of flesh.

And then smell and taste: something foul, like rotting meat, blood, copper, dandelions, baking bread, perfume, a woman's lips, Grimm blood, cooked meat, water, something metallic.

It was all too much! His brain had been full decades ago, but the images and the sounds and the tastes and the smells just kept pouring in. Death! So much death! And all of the lies he'd been forced to tell! When he'd told them, they seemed worth it, but could he be sure now?!

Jaune spasmed and kicked, hands clutching at his poor, aching head. The hair between his fingers was steadily losing all colour, becoming a pale grey. It was good that no one could see him.

After all, he'd only gone through about four centuries, and there was still so much to see.

* * *

 **So... how about that episode, hunh?**

 **I was reading through the reaction thread on r/RWBY when I find this comment suggesting that Ozpin had the powers of the old man, and I thought 'What if...?'**

 **If you liked it and want me to do more, PM me or leave a review saying so! I have some vague ideas of where I could go with this: like what Jaune does after he absorbs 1,000+ years worth of memories and the other powers of 'The Old Man', what has happened to Pyrrha and the rest of the gang in this version of events and so on.**

 **For some reason, I really enjoy writing Jaune in pain. Does that make me a sadist? Also, I do have something of a history planned for the powers. Like, who the second Old Man was, what his role was during the Great War, why the Schnees have a hereditary semblance, the beginning of the Branwen family, the rise of Atlas and its eventual consumption of the kingdom of Mantle.**

 **Oh boy do I have plans...**


End file.
